The Hidden Reality

The Hidden Reality

Finding My Jewish Past and My Catholic Present

Growing up in New York City in a very strict Catholic home I began questioning the doctrines of our faith at a very young age. Little did I know that this very same quest brought me to a moment in my life in which I would have all these questions answered for me by G-d, Himself!

When this revelation was presented to me, while I was still a teenager, it answered every question or doubt I could or ever would have in respects to my faith. After this profound experience I would understand with perfect clarity all the beautiful mysteries taught to me in Catholic school that I had always questioned. Also amazingly enough it was also revealed to me that I was Jewish, although this fact was completely unknown to me at that time! I was shown the perfect continuation of the mysteries and spiritual harmonies between both Judaism and Christianity. Despite the weaknesses and faults of her individual members, the Church represents for us G-d's kingdom on earth.

Now, many years later, I find myself still a Catholic but also an observer of Judaism. Some years ago my family made aliyah to Israel to claim Israeli citizenship. So, now, we are what you might call Israeli/Catholics. At this present time we find ourselves currently in the process of arranging our final return to Israel whenever the Lord permits this door to open for us.

My husband is a Torah Observant Messianic Jew and we live a life very similar to that of any other Orthodox Jews. He does believe in the Messiah as being Yeshua but does not believe in the Divinity of the Messiah. I do understand the Divinity of Messiah and pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal this truth to my husband when he is ready to accept it. When my husband does kiddush (blesses the bread and wine before Shabbat meals) we also say the Our Father. We keep kashrut (kosher food laws) which is very easy for us to keep being that we are vegetarians.

The Jewish Feast Days are a joy to celebrate because within each and every one of these feast days is a wealth of spiritual teaching on the Person of the Messiah. Although the way in which we practice our faith should be enough for anyone to feel spiritually fulfilled yet for me there always seems to be something missing. The simple act of attending daily Mass endows me with so much spiritual strength that I have yet to experience this in any other place of worship. My husband does not understand why I am still attracted to the Catholic faith and all I can do is pray silently that someday the Holy Spirit will reveal to him what was shown to me so many years ago.

So, now, my life has done a complete 360 degree turn in a very amusing way to say the least! Being of Portuguese-Spanish descent I now found myself in a very odd predicament! Secretly, I now attend daily Mass and receive Communion as it seems I now find myself living the life of a secret Catholic! This is the exact reverse of how my ancestors lived during the Spanish Inquisition days...when they were secret Jews! They professed their Catholic faith openly yet lived as Jews secretly. So after many long years of trying to be either one or the other, strangely enough, I have found my peace and the solution to my long spiritual struggle in being BOTH Catholic and Jewish!

Following are excerpts taken from a book I am writing on the spiritual revelation given to me during the Six Day War in Israel. This was a time in which many Jewish people received supernatural revelations and came to accept their Jewish Messiah. After the Six Day War Jerusalem fell again under Jewish control after 2,000 years of Gentile rule.

The Messiah

It was an average hot summer's day in the summer of 1967 and I was just an average teenager. As I closed my eyes to rest awhile immediately I felt my spirit or what I know as 'my spirit' or 'me' lift up through my head and begin to ascend. All during this experience I felt perfectly normal and I don't remember feeling any fear or pain at any time...only amazement! I remember thinking that there really was 'MORE' after life on earth. Everything they taught us in Catholic school about life after death and the fact that we possessed eternal souls was then true after all! As I went higher and higher, I also began to accelerate until I was traveling so rapidly that the stars themselves seemed to give the effect of going through a tunnel of light. At a distance in the firmament I could see a very bright light that I seemed to be traveling towards and the closer I came to it the more my anticipation grew. Even though I understood that I was traveling through the galaxies never did I feel any type of fear or discomfort; I was totally at ease and felt as much 'at home' as I did here on earth. The closer I came to the light the more my spirit accelerated towards it.

The moment I reached the brilliant light it felt as if my spirit melted into what I can best describe as an ocean of Divine Love. This love was so great and encompassing that I know very well that there are no human words that can adequately describe it. It is the Love of G-d that is so great, so sublime, and so perfect that it passes all human understanding. In other words it is so all-encompassing that it cannot possibly ever enter or fit into the mind of man nor can our words describe it! Our mind of flesh cannot comprehend or hold this powerful and awesome spiritual love of G-d! I was in a state of total ecstasy as I just melted into this ocean of sublime love that G-d felt for all of His creation. It was all around me and came from within me and from without me and seemed to pulsate with its own life as it expanded outwards through the entire universe. Within and as part of this vast ocean of love I also felt tremendous peace and restfulness. This was G-d’s rest. It was much different than any other peace or rest on earth. This rest of G-d was a release of an invisible constant struggle that we all have while living on earth, though we are not aware of it. Nothing on earth could ever compare to this, 'His' awesome peace and love, that my spirit was now experiencing.

Through all of the experience and what was revealed to me I do not remember having heard any audible words. The thoughts and information that I was receiving entered directly into my mind without the use of words. It was being relayed into my mind at a very rapid pace in a way that could never be accomplished on earth. My mind was being flooded with what seemed like all the wisdom and knowledge of heaven itself. Every question or doubt I had ever had was suddenly being answered in intricate detail!

I saw that the Trinity was exactly how it had been explained to us by the sisters. There is a Divine Arc of Three Persons that compose the one and ONLY G-d! The three are one and the one is three. St. Patrick explained it perfectly when he used the three leaf clover as an example to enable us to understand this beautiful mystery of the unity of G-d.

I was also shown that many of the very things that were so important to us here on earth were not important at all in the realm of G-d! Wealth, scholastic degrees, political power, fame, beauty, human charisma, possessions etc. etc. were not at all important to the Creator of the Universe! Knowledge of Him, and who He was and loving Him and our fellow man were the important issues to G-d. I realized that truth was what could not be observed with our eyes... because this was the realm of the Infinite! What we could observe with our eyes was not truth since it was finite and transitory. As human beings living on this earth we should be mindful that we are spiritual beings on a physical journey and that our time living in G-d's earth is beautiful but transitory...our true home is to be with Him in His Eternal Realm. The Eternal Realm is very difficult to describe since it is timeless! Everything we say and do is programmed by time itself. We think in terms or hours, days, months and years, etc. In His realm there simply is no concept of time whatsoever! Past, present and future are all one.

Then I began to observe certain things and events in something that seemed like a huge screen before me. The very first thing I saw was a man dressed in a white robe with his back to me. The man had his hands lifted up in adoration and he had a gold band that went around his waist. He also had a turban on his head and I noticed that there were tiny bells that dangled from the hem of his robe. He was standing in front of some type of altar and he was sacrificing a small animal on it. The altar itself had been built with stone upon stone and I could see that no mortar had been used in its construction. From the sacrifice on this altar I saw a cloud of smoke that rose up in the sky, there was an intense holiness and reverence about the scene I was observing. At that time I had no idea what this was or what it represented. Yet later I understood that this was a high holy priest of ancient Israel sacrificing a sin offering for his people on a consecrated altar. This is how G-d commanded the priests to build the altars of ancient Israel. They could not have any mortar or cement holding the stones together.

Immediately after this I was taken to a place where I could see the entire planet Earth beneath me. I observed as something somewhere on the planet began to rise up. Slowly as it rose I could see that it was a cross. It continued to rise until it became an enormously huge cross up in the firmament above! Then it stopped rising and suddenly I observed as a cloud of smoke emanated from this cross and went around the entire circumference of the earth. I understood that, to G-d, the event that took place upon that cross far exceeded in importance anything that happened before or after this day. It was by far the most important day in all of history for the G-d who created the vast universe. The cloud was a very effective barrier that kept the eye of G-d from beholding sin in us! The sacrifices that were offered on the altars of ancient Israel kept G-d from beholding sin among His people, Israel, were a perfect prototype of what G-d would provide later on in time and history for all nations on the face of the earth!! This blessed sacrifice of substitution was now available for anyone, anywhere, who wished to partake of the tremendous privilege of having the cloud of mercy over his or her life!! This precious and priceless covering blocked our sins from being beheld, and therefore ultimately having to be judged by our Creator and Father! This was in perfect harmony with the concept of blood being required for the forgiveness of sin recorded in the book of Leviticus.

And in the firmament I saw a great light that was rapidly approaching me. As this brilliant light was coming towards me, I could observe that in the center was a figure of a man. As He came nearer and nearer the light became as bright as the sun, itself! It was around Him and radiated outwards from Him. His robe was luminescent and pulsated as if with a life of its own. Then as He came very close I could capture His incredible majesty and beauty. His eyes were like torches of fire that seemed to burn right through to my innermost being. They gazed at me with love and knowledge to the utmost. I was aware that my soul stood naked before Him and there was absolutely nothing at all that I could ever hide from Him. He knew the reasons behind the reasons of every single action I had every done and would do from that moment on. He knew the thoughts behind the thoughts I had had and would have. He knew me much better than I could ever know myself. The amazing and very touching reality was the fact that even though He knew me so very well He loved and forgave me! It was amazing how, although, I stood spiritually naked before Him and He observed all my faults and sins He loved and accepted me completely as I was!! He could observe ALL the sins and mistakes I would make during the course of my entire life, before and after this moment in time! Yet His love was so strong that it surpassed, by far, any human emotion I could ever experience on earth. Through all this I still did not know who this incredible being was! As I felt that my spirit was melting under the immense weight of His boundless love and compassion I could do nothing more but fall at His feet.

As soon as I fell to His feet I knew Who this Being was. I could clearly see that there were two scars, one on each of His feet. All of the holiness and awesome sacredness of heaven were emanating from His precious feet. The ultimate and complete joy I felt while laying prostrate at His feet is impossible to describe. My soul was totally satiated, fulfilled and overflowing with love and gratitude. I know that I would have been totally content to stay right where I was, at His feet, throughout all of eternity. If only I could stay right here just worshiping and adoring Him forever! Billows of thankfulness emanated from my being as I realized that it was my sins that had caused these scars on my Beloved’s feet. This was the Prince of Peace, the Rock of Ages, the King of the Jews, the Messiah and the Savior of mankind. For this precious moment in time He was not just the Savior of all of mankind He was my Savior! All the love of the universe seemed to be reflected from Him to me and back from me to Him.

The Chosen People

Before me as if on a very large screen I saw the face of an old man. I understood immediately that this was no ordinary old man. The man before me had been very special to G-d, Himself, and I knew then that this person was Abraham the patriarch. Suddenly I felt as if I had entered the relationship that existed between Abraham and G-d. I felt the warmth and genuine friendship that had existed between them both.

Just as we have very close or best friends that we esteem higher than all our other friends so Abraham was G-d’s very best friend. It is almost impossible for us to comprehend how G-d could have a mere human being as a best friend but the scriptures testify to this fact. Apart from Abraham, the patriarch, no other person in all of history was ever given the honor of being selected to be G-d’s best friend. “But you, Israel are my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend.” (Isaiah 41:8).

Since then Abraham was so very special to Him, then also all of Abraham’s descendents would very special to G-d. He would look kindly on all of his descendents for the sake of the love He had for Abraham. The same love He felt for Abraham was passed down to each and every one of his descendants throughout the centuries. His special love for Abraham and his descendants would never fail. He valued each and every one of them just as much as He valued and esteemed Abraham. “I will bless those that bless you and I will curse those that curse you.” (Gen 12:3). Again He states, “For he that touches you touches the apple of my eye” (Zech 2:8).

The pupil or the apple of the eye is the most sensitive and delicate part of the entire body. The pupil allows us to observe things around us whether they be good or bad. By stating that Abraham’s descendants are the apple of His eye, G-d is making a very bold statement. He is saying that He actually sees or touches the world through these descendants of Abraham. He did not choose them because they are special in and of themselves, He chose them because ‘He’ is special and chose to touch or see the world by way of or through them.

I observed what seemed to be a huge tapestry that filled the sky before me. Then I saw as the Father weave something in and out of a huge piece of fabric. I understood this fabric to be the nations and what He was weaving in and out of them was the Jewish people! He was doing this to bless the nations and to shed His light wherever they were scattered to even to the four corners of the world. They were the main thread with which He wove the tapestry of the nations. He was sending them out to bless the entire world. It didn’t matter that the nations and they themselves were unaware of this truth; G-d could only bless the world by way of these descendants of Abraham.

I saw that the world was covered with a blanket of darkness and that the Jewish people were like tiny lights that shone in that darkness. Each one of them gave off light that shone in the darkness so that all the nations could see. They illuminated the darkness not in and of themselves but in as far as they shed the light of G-d. They had the light of G-d’s Word, His commandments, His oracles, His appointed Feast Days. Even after they were dispersed throughout the nations they carried this ‘light’ with them. Through the centuries the enemies of G-d had selected charismatic leaders to spread their venom among the Gentiles and thus try to put out the light of the Jewish people living among them. Huge waves of anti Semitism spread through various times in history to bring about their almost total annihilation. It is very difficult for me to put into words but I saw how the Father walked down into the gas chambers with each and every Jewish person as they went down hose fateful steps. It was a very moving and touching scene...and one that I shall never forget!!

While I was in the Spirit, I saw the Father (not with my natural eyes but with my spiritual eyes since with the natural eyes no one can see G-d!) and He was sitting on a throne. All around this throne were huge billows of clouds. Incredible glory and majesty filled the firmament. Mere human words could never describe the absolute splendor, holiness and sacredness that emanated from His being. There is continuous praise and worship presented before Him by the Hosts of heaven throughout all eternity!! While I observed this scene in wonder and amazement I could see that as He sat on His throne He had His back to the Jews and His face towards the Gentiles. I understood this to mean the two thousand years of Jewish dispersion and suffering. It represented all the suffering, shame and dishonor that the Jewish people had to endure when they were scattered to all the Gentile nations on the face of the earth. He had indeed hidden His face from His people as it is written: “and your sins have hidden His face from you…” (Isaiah 59:2). As He had His back towards the Jews His face was towards the Gentiles. This represented ‘the time of the Gentiles’ and a time of great blessings for them. Wherever the light of the gospel was spread and people lived under the saving grace of the Messiah God’s blessings were then put into effect.

Then I watched as something very amazing began to happen. The Father and His entire throne began to slowly rotate! As He turned His grace and His blessings turned with Him! I understood that when His face would be completely turned around again towards the Jews His back would then be turned towards the Gentiles. This would then usher in a time of great testing and trials that the Gentile nations would have to endure. Yet He was turning again towards Israel with great compassion, mercy and infinite love. His people had suffered immensely throughout the ages many and were made to endure all types of inconceivable suffering at the mercy of the citizens of their host nations. God, Himself, had allowed it but sometimes these nations had gone too far. “Comfort, yes, comfort, My people!” says your God. “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” (Isaiah 40:1-2).

As I mentioned before this experience was given to me during the time of the Six Day War, the time when Jerusalem was again given into Jewish hands. Even though the State of Israel had already been established, Jerusalem was not under Jewish control until the summer of 1967. Jesus said that Jerusalem (not Israel) would trampled on by the Gentiles until the time of Gentiles came to an end. This was a time of great joy in the heavens. I understood that now the Father, Himself, would bring His people back to their own land. He would bring them back from the four corners of the world just as each and every prophet had foretold. He would bring them back and He would restore them and bless them much more than He had blessed their fathers in ancient times.

“And I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return and will rebuild those places as at the first. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned and which they have transgressed against Me. Then it shall be to Me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all nations of the earth, who shall hear all the good that I do to them, they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the prosperity that I provide for it.” (Jeremiah 33:7-9).

Denominations

The Father had His hand extended over multitudes of steeples. I understood this to be all the different (non-Catholic) denominations that exist worldwide. He was blessing these many denominations as far as they kept to the doctrine of the gospel. He blessed them because He was honoring the faith they had in the sacrifice of His Son. I also watched in amazement as I understood that He did not really see any name or differentiate between denominations the way we did. These barriers and names we had placed on the denominations were all man-made and the Father did not acknowledge them. Much of the blood shed and many of the wars waged between denominations through the ages had basically been in vain. The denominations all had differed in their interpretation of the message of the gospel and its implementation to varying degrees of truth.

Only the Blood of the Lamb had the power, in and of itself as thus provided by the Father, to save us! I also saw that all these denominations had errors and mistakes in their doctrines....not one of them was perfect...because the people that had established them were not perfect. Only G-d is PERFECT!! Yet, the Father, in His love for us did not observe many of these errors and mistakes in doctrine. Since by observing the faith we had in the shed blood of the Lamb He was able to somehow overlook many of our flaws and errors in doctrine as long as we continued to uphold the basic truths of the gospel and commandments of Our Lord.

The Catholic Church stands alone in the fact that she was established by the Lord, Himself. When the Lord said to Peter ‘On this rock I shall build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her’ He established the Church as the vehicle by which Light would be brought to the Gentile nations. In the spirit I saw the incredible beauty of the Catholic faith, itself! There were myriads of angels protecting us as we lived under the spiritual covering of the Catholic Church. The doctrine of the Church is perfect. The Sacraments and the foundation of the blessed Apostles and Saints offered us an incredible treasure in the spiritual realm of G-d! I saw the Catholic Church to be an extension of Judaism and I observed no distinction between the two. The spiritual protection offered to us within the context of the Catholic Church is almost impossible to put into words. Every aspect of our lives is gently and carefully orchestrated by the angels as we live under the great spiritual umbrella of the Catholic faith! What a tremendous and awesome spiritual privilege to live under the protective covering of the Catholic Church! We are protected constantly from the ever present enemy of our souls who hates us and wishes to take us with him to his kingdom! This enemy is a constant threat to us and he is very 'REAL' although we are seldom conscious of it. The enemy is lurking behind every corner just waiting for the opportunity to deceive and ultimately destroy our lives! Partaking of the Sacraments and living up to the doctrine and guidelines of the Catholic Church actually offers us a tremendous blanket of spiritual protection in heaven that the enemy cannot penetrate!

Yes, other Christian denominations also have some truth but the doctrine of the Catholic Church has remained faithful to the heart of G-d. Through the wealth of the teachings of the apostles and fathers of the Church, her mystics, the Sacraments and our Jewish roots we are endowed with tremendous spiritual treasures in the heavens! The Catholic Church has taken a strong stand to protect us from falling into the very sins that G-d hates and that injure our souls. By partaking of and not repenting of these sins a person then opens a door which allows the enemy to touch their lives. This vicious enemy of our souls wastes no time in trying to enter into and then proceed to take full control of our lives. Many lukewarm Christians are unaware that they have no spiritual covering whatsoever! On the other hand we must understand that G-d loves the sinner and hates the sin. There is absolutely no sin that G-d cannot forgive and offers perfect forgiveness to those with a contrite heart. As David states in Psalm 51: 'the sacrifices of G-d are a contrite heart' and these He will never turn away.

The Doctrine of the Catholic Church has staunchly stood against the sins of abortion, homosexuality and divorce throughout the ages. These sins are especially damaging to us because they destroy the sacredness of family and society as a whole! Entire nations have fallen because they have partaken of these sins that many other modern-day Christian denominations have already mistakenly accepted into their belief systems!

There are difficult days ahead for the inhabitants of the earth. Many of us will have our faith challenged. Those of us who profess to be Christians should try and find ways to bring down the walls of separation that divide us all as believers in the Messiah of Israel! Let us follow Our Lord's teachings and learn to love one another as believers in Messiah instead of finding fault and condemning one another. The time is soon coming upon us when we will need each other!! TIME IS SHORT... He is almost here!